Worth the $10 ticket

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jeffcoslacker
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Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

So I was driving around aimlessly last night after work, in a kind of half-hearted attempt to find someplace to eat that piqued my curiosity enough to try it, and just trying to re-familiarize myself with the roads here.

I passed two county cops that were in a disused lot doing traffic enforcement and was glad to be actually slightly under the posted limit, a rarity for me.

So when one of them blasted off and homed in on me, I was initially baffled...I'm not speeding, I know all my lights work...OH! Seat belt. Still a sporadic user. It's a primary traffic offense here (meaning they can stop you for just that alone) but carries a $10 fine, no biggie.

Sure enough, that was the deal. The young cop rattled off his pre-loaded speech about seat belts, how he was tasked to the MODOT program to increase awareness, blah blah, I've heard this one a few times. He quickly explains that it is a no-point, $10 violation, has no effect on your insurance rates, etc, pre-empting the typical questions and I could tell there was a kind mental wall up that shields him from anticipated angry backlash, for some reason some folks really lose their shit over being pulled over solely for seat belt violation.

Me, I don't care. Unless they were getting me a couple times a week or something, I really don't care about donating $10 to the county every couple of years. So I just kept it pleasant and took my ticket and thanked him, then I thought this is a good time maybe to ask a cop about our new-ish Constitutional Carry law, what he personally thinks of it, whether I'm required to inform when they make a traffic stop (I really wasn't sure, but I didn't think so), and how he views knowing that now probably way more people he deals with are armed than before. So I asked if he had a minute for a couple of questions.

Wow. It was like he'd been DYING for someone to ask his opinions about this stuff. Or maybe just treat him like a normal human being in the course of his workday. He was a veritable chatterbox. We must have talked for like 15 minutes. I'm sure seat belt patrol is probably kinda boring too.

He seemed to like the new law. He said there is no requirement to inform here. He thought it was stupid to have that requirement, as the people you'd need to be concerned about aren't going to inform you (good point), so essentially just another charge to put on them after the fact, serves no real purpose. He said if you have a CCW on your license they might ask you if you're carrying, and maybe even ask to disarm you for the period of their interaction with you, if you're giving off weird vibes for some reason, but for the most part he said they couldn't care less what you've got if you're legal and appear to be "balanced", not intoxicated or wanted or in a strange mental state....let's see...what else....told me a couple of interesting stories about traffic stops and guns that he'd experienced....we talked about handguns and ammo preferences...

So then I asked him if he wanted to come back to my place, to which he responded "Yeah, alright.." and off we went...

No no no. That was a Monty Python bit. :lmao: Just seeing if you're still with me here.

Anyway, I'd pay $10 for that kind of insights anytime. I thanked him for his time and for what he does, and told him to be safe. He told me to do the same. Hopefully the experience made his day. It made mine [emoji106]

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Fred
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by Fred »

I dont drive in Uk a lot and although seat belts are required in Thailand im a slack user so to speak.

So any way Im in Uk in a hire car and I stop at the lights, a police car pulls up next to me I kinda noticed it was the police but hell its 11 am . So I casualy glanced in his direction to find him glancing in mine and he pulled at his seat belt. I thought strange , why is he showing me he has retractable seat belts so I just looked away.

So he blew his horn, I looked again and he once again pulled at his seat belt, yes Im a bit slow.

So it hit me , I grabbed the belt and clicked it in, he smiled just in time for the lights to change to green.

Nice bobby.

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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

Fred wrote:I dont drive in Uk a lot and although seat belts are required in Thailand im a slack user so to speak.

So any way Im in Uk in a hire car and I stop at the lights, a police car pulls up next to me I kinda noticed it was the police but hell its 11 am . So I casualy glanced in his direction to find him glancing in mine and he pulled at his seat belt. I thought strange , why is he showing me he has retractable seat belts so I just looked away.

So he blew his horn, I looked again and he once again pulled at his seat belt, yes Im a bit slow.

So it hit me , I grabbed the belt and clicked it in, he smiled just in time for the lights to change to green.

Nice bobby.
One night I stopped at a red light and the car behind me kept flashing its lights. I kept looking back to see if it was someone I knew. Nope.

They kept doing it and it was getting annoying. I was about to get an attitude when seemingly the voice of God said "You, in the Impala...turn your lights on..."

Cop in an unmarked car on his PA system :lmao:

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Fred
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by Fred »

Oh I love the Chevi Impalas my favourite after the Caprice.

Theres a 89 Caprice on ebay UK but it will have gone by the time I get there in April.

Ide have bought that, looked clean.

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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

Fred wrote:Oh I love the Chevi Impalas my favourite after the Caprice.

Theres a 89 Caprice on ebay UK but it will have gone by the time I get there in April.

Ide have bought that, looked clean.
I liked the Box Caprices a lot and had several (mostly wagons), but my baby was my 1994 Impala SS. I wasn't a big fan of that generation of Caprice, but the Impala SS's were nice cars.

Image

PS that's my old Mazda 626 behind it, 330,000 miles on it I sold it to a guy who may still be driving it daily. I think that car was immortal. Except for rust. :donno:

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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by Prodigal_Sun »

I live less than a half mile from a gas station and I went to go get gas one day. I noticed a cop car sitting at a stop sign a block from my house and realized I wasn't wearing my seat belt. It's a primary offense here, but a $90 fine. I panicked and fumbled around reaching for it to put it on as I went past him. He pulled out and got right behind me. I knew he had to have seen me, I turn onto the main road, he follows me. I quick get in the left turn lane to go to the gas station and he's still behind me. He follows me into the gas station, I try to ignore him and pull up to the pump and get out and take the gas cap off. He gets out of his car, saunters up to me. "You know why I followed you in here?" I just said "Yeah, my seatbelt, I just live a couple blocks from here and just forgot when I pulled out of the driveway" He asks to see my license, can plainly see my address on it. He doesn't even go back to his car and just tells me the next time to just, he makes a calm normal motion reaching over his shoulder and kind of looks at me expectantly. I just nod and say "ok" and that was it. No ticket.
:evil: [emoji56]

I have a lot of opinions, some of them professional, some of them educated, most of them I just pulled out of my @$$

Some of my best stupidity is largely self-inflicted. :roll:
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by JFL Live »

So... did he come back to your place?
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jeffcoslacker
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

JFL Live wrote:So... did he come back to your place?
No but he's got my address. :lolfall:

jeffcoslacker
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

Hey Fred, what is the basis of the Thai government's (seemingly crazy) stance on vapor cigs? I keep reading articles talking about people being arrested for it and getting heavy jail time etc. What's up with that? I'm baffled. :confused:

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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by RoadKing »

Waaaay back in the late 60’s I was spending a winter’s weekend day in The Santa Cruz Mountains with wonderful company. By midaft clouds and cold were setting in so I decided to start home before dark. On my way out to my bike a gal placed a tab of acid on her tongue and offered me a parting kiss. I accepted.

About 45 minutes of winding mountain roads later I reached Highway 17 and was more than ready and willing and able to grab a whole lot of throttle just as that acid was kicking in. The XLCH and I were flying as one and in the center of my universe I was so acutely aware that there was no way I cold have missed the CHP unit snugged away on the opposite side of the freeway. I was feeling intense joy and didn’t throttle down because he had already seen me so why change?

An eternity of seconds later sure enuff the strobe of pretty lights was behind me and I joyfully pulled my bike to the gravel shoulder, kickstand down, off my bike DL in hand as the CHP approached. I at the moment felt nothing but love and respect for that guy as he ran a check and I asked him how his day was going and he said good especially now that his shift was ending and asked if I knew why he lit em up on me and I said yeah because my brake lights are flashing on and off due to problem I’ll fix when I get home and he asks how fast I was going and without a speedometer I could only guess about 70 which was 15 over and he thanked me for being honest to which I told him about my dad who had taught me to respect everyone and always tell the truth and I was so happy that my ear to ear grin felt like my face was going to break as he wrote me a fixit for my rear break and he was also smiling as he walked back to his unit and kicked up a little gravel as he waved and got back on the freeway and that memory has indelibly remained all these years later.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury…
Signifying nothing”

Signifying monkey, stay up in your tree. Always lying and signifying, but you better not monkey with me.

jeffcoslacker
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

RoadKing wrote:Waaaay back in the late 60’s I was spending a winter’s weekend day in The Santa Cruz Mountains with wonderful company. By midaft clouds and cold were setting in so I decided to start home before dark. On my way out to my bike a gal placed a tab of acid on her tongue and offered me a parting kiss. I accepted.

About 45 minutes of winding mountain roads later I reached Highway 17 and was more than ready and willing and able to grab a whole lot of throttle just as that acid was kicking in. The XLCH and I were flying as one and in the center of my universe I was so acutely aware that there was no way I cold have missed the CHP unit snugged away on the opposite side of the freeway. I was feeling intense joy and didn’t throttle down because he had already seen me so why change?

An eternity of seconds later sure enuff the strobe of pretty lights was behind me and I joyfully pulled my bike to the gravel shoulder, kickstand down, off my bike DL in hand as the CHP approached. I at the moment felt nothing but love and respect for that guy as he ran a check and I asked him how his day was going and he said good especially now that his shift was ending and asked if I knew why he lit em up on me and I said yeah because my brake lights are flashing on and off due to problem I’ll fix when I get home and he asks how fast I was going and without a speedometer I could only guess about 70 which was 15 over and he thanked me for being honest to which I told him about my dad who had taught me to respect everyone and always tell the truth and I was so happy that my ear to ear grin felt like my face was going to break as he wrote me a fixit for my rear break and he was also smiling as he walked back to his unit and kicked up a little gravel as he waved and got back on the freeway and that memory has indelibly remained all these years later.
Every time I've ever tripped seemed like something unsual and profound like that happened...and I still for the life of me can never quite decide if it was just the trip making it seem that way, or if it really was that unusual. [emoji106]

One time me and my longtime GF got some INTENSE happy paper and talked and laughed about the most amazing stuff all night long...and about 4 am we got that urge to be outside and see the world wake up and come to life...we were running down normally busy streets holding hands and laughing hysterically because there was no traffic to make it dangerous to do so.

We spotted an external stairs on an abandoned 8 story building and climbed to the top landing just in time to see the morning sun break over the horizon, with the cityscape throwing oranges and pinks and reds it was beautiful. No, it was FUCKING AMAZING.

Then as it got higher we just sat there, quietly listening to the world come alive, you could hear cars starting in driveways blocks away from up there...birds beginning their mornings with songs, buses on the roads, dogs barking in yards, everything. It was summertime so it began to get hot up there fast with the sun beating down...and we started down the stairs...

And as we rounded the last set, we walked straight into a cop. :eek: He asked what we were doing up there. We told him excitedly about all the stuff we saw and heard. He HAD to know we were fucked up as hell... :lmao: ...but he just asked where we lived and we told him, he was the one that first suggested that we were actually legally common-law married, according to the local laws...what a mind blower :lolfall: ...I'd never considered that before....she wanted me to marry her SO bad...seemed she had me at that point.

Anyway, he told us he just wanted to make sure we weren't homeless trying to break into the building, said to have a nice morning and got in his car went on his way. And we stood there like "Did that just happen?" :blink:

Crazy....

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Fred
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by Fred »

Ive lost the police in 2 car chases. The first was a yellow corvette 76 L82 350 ci . He was writing a ticket over the brow of a hill and I went past him so fast his tickets blew away. He ran for his little 1200cc Ford Escort and tried pathetically , I slowed right down and let him catch me up. I drove into my mates house and he just stared at me, he had nothing. Thing is he knew me as all the police did. It was yellow with Arabic plates, he knew who I was, but there was nothing he could do.

Second was the Jenson Interceptor 440 CI mopar. Ok I was chunking on a bit and a saw another of those spastic police car things behind me, pale blue ford 1200. I turned off my lights and threw it round the country lanes. My passenger stayed quiet as it screeched and grunted its way round until I could not see his lights any more.

40HP against 380 im surprised he even tried :lmao:

jeffcoslacker
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Re: Worth the $10 ticket

Post by jeffcoslacker »

Fred wrote:Ive lost the police in 2 car chases. The first was a yellow corvette 76 L82 350 ci . He was writing a ticket over the brow of a hill and I went past him so fast his tickets blew away. He ran for his little 1200cc Ford Escort and tried pathetically , I slowed right down and let him catch me up. I drove into my mates house and he just stared at me, he had nothing. Thing is he knew me as all the police did. It was yellow with Arabic plates, he knew who I was, but there was nothing he could do.

Second was the Jenson Interceptor 440 CI mopar. Ok I was chunking on a bit and a saw another of those spastic police car things behind me, pale blue ford 1200. I turned off my lights and threw it round the country lanes. My passenger stayed quiet as it screeched and grunted its way round until I could not see his lights any more.

40HP against 380 im surprised he even tried :lmao:
:lmao:

With the Battenberg markings? I'm working up a visual here :lmao:

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